Does eBay Feedback Matter Anymore?
UpGrayedd
Posts: 608 ✭✭✭✭✭
I recently started selling off part of my collection on eBay. I have quite a bit of feedback as a buyer, but not much as a seller. Over the past month I have sold 46 coins, but only 19 buyers have left any feedback. I know that when I was actively buying I tried to leave feedback immediately unless there was an issue. In those rare cases that I didn't leave feedback immediately, eBay would send me almost daily reminders to do so, but I'm not sure if eBay still does this.
I have tried messaging the buyers myself 5 days after delivery, requesting that they leave positive feedback when they have time and I will do the same, but so far that has only worked with one buyer. I know that a bunch of you have more experience selling on eBay than I do, so my question is does eBay feedback even matter anymore? As mentioned I have a considerable amount of 100% positive feedback from the buying side so is there any benefit to growing my feedback numbers as a seller? If there is a benefit, do any of you have advice on how to get coin buyers to leave feedback?
Philippians 4:4-7
Comments
It was only recently I realized it was possible to leave feedback on Amazon. I never have- and probably never will. I just don't care enough to do so.
I suppose many new members to eBay feel the same way.
peacockcoins
I've been on ebay for 27 years. There has never been a time when more than about 1/3 of buyers left feedback.
Ebay does still remind buyers to leave feedback.
I think it matters as a buyer and seller for sure.
I always leave feedback for sellers within a day or two, and I always look at a seller’s feedback count and positive percentage. I look at comments on occasion. Haven’t sold anything in a long time.
Has become a much more complex site. Finding stuff like the feedback forum requires a Lewis and Clark expedition.
Don't worry about it too much.
As a buyer, I never get reminders to leave feedback. I generally do leave feedback for sellers, but will do so maybe every 2 or 3 weeks and don't worry too much about it.
As a seller, I always leave feedback when I ship the coin. I get about 50% of buyers leaving feedback, so maybe leaving feedback first makes the buyer more inclined to respond in kind when they receive the coin. There is really no reason to wait, as a seller can only leave positive feedback. I guess if you have a crummy buyer you can leave a not-so-positive comment within the "positive" feedback, but that is technically not allowed by ebay.
As long as your feedback remains 100% and you have over 500 feedbacks from either buying or selling I wouldn't worry about it.
What you do is exactly what you should be doing so don't stress about it. 😉
I almost always leave feedback, but most of my buyers never do. I'd guess maybe 25% do.
When I buy on eBay (which is somewhat rare), I take a quick look at the seller's overall feedback rating. If I see a low number I move on. So I guess it's still meaningful to me.
Dave
I think that in certain situations it can definitely matter and it can even matter with which categories your seller feedback resides. A couple of weeks ago I came across some listings from a seller that had a 100% feedback rating with over 5000 items sold. They had a handful of high 4 to low 5 figure numismatic items up for auction at starting prices that were around where they previously sold back in May on HA.
The problem was that in addition to these items, their other listings up for sale were 1000 piece jigsaw puzzles and at least on the app where you can only see back so far their feedback history was only for puzzles and books. Because no one was willing to take a leap on submitting a bid (likely because of the lack of recent numismatic seller feedback), the seller went through several rounds of lowering their prices before finally finding buyers at substantial discounts to the Heritage transaction prices.
Whether or not feedback matters aside, as a rule I'll never request it. While I do everything I can to be on the up and up and provide quality items and service, every so often there's someone you can't please. If someone wants to leave me a positive, fantastic. If they don't leave any feedback, I'd rather that than find out they opted to leave no feedback instead of something less than stellar, where requesting feedback could put them over the edge. Granted, if there's a problem I'd like them to give me a chance to fix it, but eBay buyers are definitely not good about that.
Thanks for the feedback.
A lot of good advice and responses from everyone. It sounds like getting buyers to leave feedback is sporadic for everyone so I'm not going to sweat it. I'm also going to rethink my habit of soliciting feedback after 5 days. As @airplanenut mentioned, maybe sometimes no news is good news. However, I may start to leave positive feedback first and see if that makes a difference.
Philippians 4:4-7
like @jmlanzaf I have also been on eBay for 27 years, this month as a matter of fact. In the old days I almost always received feedback from my buyers, these days 1/3 to 1/2 is typical.
I usually check a buyers feedback and if what they leave is positive I leave positive feedback for them as soon as I ship. Surprisingly lots of buyers never leave feedback even though they may have hundreds or thousands of feedback from sellers.
it's crackers to slip a rozzer the dropsy in snide
I always leave feedback on buyers as soon as I pack up the item and get the shipping label.
AAA Quick pay. That's again.
Things that I buy I usually leave feedback it it's not just a generic item... those sellers usually already have thousands of feedback and I doubt one more would make any difference.
Happy anniversary to us.
I haven't sold on ebay for a while now, when I was I would get about 70% of the buyers leaving feedback.
Never ask a buyer for feedback! You are only asking for problems.
As a courtesy and acknowledgement, it is a good communication tool. But I get 50% of users (buyers and sellers) can do without it.
Some sellers refuse to provide feedback after you pay them until buyer provides feedback. So screw them. As a buyer my responsibility ends when I send payment which is the time (or fairly close to then) that they should issue it. It's become a game of chicken. As a seller I always leave feedback when I ship an item as part of my process.
I always leave feedback after I receive and examine what I bought. I consider it to be a courtesy to the seller and just the right thing to do.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
This is why eBay now disallows sellers from leaving negative feedback. In the bad old days, eBay feedback was worthless since many dealers who got a well deserved negative would leave a retaliatory negative feedback for the buyer. Most buyers were afraid to leave to leave negs for sellers even when it's well deserved.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
Sure. But allowing one way feedback extortion isn't any more fair. They are just favoring buyers over sellers.
The way to solve this would be to allow one week to give feedback. The feedback would be hidden until both the buyer and seller have left their feedback. If only one leaves feedback, it would be posted after the one week period is up and the window of opportunity to leave feedback would then close. This would prevent feedback extortion.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
This is how it should be. I find it petty for a seller to hold feedback hostage. As a seller, I feel that the buyer has done what is expected of them when they make payment. I just have my seller feedback automated so I don't have to continually go in and leave feedback manually.
There is no reason to ask for feedback from your buyers. As previously stated, over time, you can figure you are only going to get at best, 50% feedback.
As part of my buyer feedback left after I received the item, if the seller hadn't left feedback by then I would still give positive feedback scores but in my comments I would mention that seller didn't leave feedback. That would upset a few sellers more than I ever thought possible. I no longer do that because ebay changed the page and it's too much effort to see if they've left feedback yet. It used to be shown right there.
It only matters if it is neutral or bad and what the person leaving it said. Some eBayers are idiots and/or inexperienced. You can tell by the feedback they have left. I usually look at sellers with feedback lower than 100% without thousands of sales, but still buy most of the time.
I respectfully disagree - the buyers responsibility does not end with the simple act of payment. Feedback should be left after the transaction is completed and the transaction is not complete until both parties are satisfied. As a seller the only indication that I have that the buyer is good with the transaction is when I receive positive feedback. Any other response or no response from the buyer leaves open the question of whether the transaction in truly completed or not.
eBay tacitly acknowledges this by allowing the seller to automatically send positive feedback to the buyer after the buyer leaves positive feedback for the seller but does not allow the reverse.
So if a buyer just sends you a message and says they received the item and they are satisfied with their purchase the transaction still wouldn't be considered completed in your opinion?
It depends. If you’re selling inexpensive coins it probably doesn’t make any difference but if you’re selling expensive coins for the first time positive feedback is probably helpful. For someone with very little feedback accepting returns will make buyers feel more comfortable.
As a seller I leave feedback about every month for all buyers. It does not depend if they have left feedback or not. I get about 30% feedback from completed sales. I never ask for feedback and think it really does not matter if I receive any as long as I keep my 100% positive rating. I have been on Ebay since 97 so I have a long record to fall back on and do not need each and every feedback.
I find that feedback is useful as a way to judge buyers when they ask question/make offer. I check what feedback they have left as a buyer in the past. I sometimes avoid problems by blocking certain buyers before I even respond to the question/offer.
Going back to the OP, I would suggest that you open a separate account to buy items with. You may find that using the same account to continue to buy items opens yourself up to retaliatory feedback if You leave neg/neutral feedback on a seller.
Edit to correct 2 account reason
I always make sure i count the number of +'s after the A to determine if someone is worthy of my money.
Successful transactions with: robkool, Walkerguy21D, JimW, Bruce7789, massscrew, Jinx86, jonasdenenbergllc, Yorkshireman, bobsr, tommyrusty7, markelman1125, Kliao, DBSTrader2, SurfinxHI, ChrisH821, CoinHoarder, Bolo, MICHAELDIXON, bigtime36, JWP, 1960NYGiants, fishteeth
I always leave feedback, and I feel it is rude not to do this.
Most of my sales have been coins, and 90% of my buyers leave feedback. I never ask for feedback anymore, since it does not help. I have not left feedback for buyers who don't rate me.
Why is my satisfaction with a deal a requirement for positive feedback? I've bought many items that I was not truly satisfied with but the seller did nothing wrong and the seller would get positive feedback if they did not leave it for me. Do you lave negative feedback if the buyer isn't happy with the item or returns it? Exactly what more information do you need to rate the buyer's performance as a buyer after you get the payment? Do you think the buyer has an obligation to let you know it arrived OK or express satisfaction?
I don't view Ebay's auto feedback function as any kind of endorsement of the practice, just a tool to assist sellers.
Negative feedback has meaning. I don’t usually look at a sellers actual feedback comments unless they are negative if I want to purchase a coin on eBay. I also am very sporadic on leaving feedback. I tend not to leave feedback, except on occasion when I’m in the right mood, and then I go into my purchases tab and give everybody the highest rating and leave the same comment “great seller” unless I had a problem, in which case I usually don’t give any feedback but remember not to purchase from them again. Someone would have to have totally scammed me for me to give them negative feedback, and luckily this has been very rare for me.
Mr_Spud
I just now went on eBay and gave 5 star Feedback to a few dozen sellers and left the comment “Great seller” because I don’t remember any problems that were the sellers fault for anything.
Mr_Spud
Sellers can't leave negative feedback.
As an update, I went back and left positive feedback for everyone that has paid for their coins. It may be coincidental, but it does seem to have made a difference as several buyers that recieved their coins yesterday and today have reciprocated. Moving forward I will make it a point to leave feedback when I ship.
Philippians 4:4-7
When I was actively selling coins on the bay I took the advice @Russ gave me and left immediate positive feedback. I never thought to offer my feedback conditionally and this always worked for me.
I'm back selling now with 100% positive in 25 years as of October.
"Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working" Pablo Picasso
I leave feedback for buyers because I can leave a canned message for everyone automatically with the click of a button, but make no mistake, buyer feedback is all but totally useless. No matter how many bad things a buyer does, they can only get positive feedback, so great feedback could be because a buyer is great or because all the warnings couldn’t be left. Outside of perhaps a new buyer looking to have something other than a blank reputation, I really see no reason for buyers to be upset if they don’t get feedback.
Less so now.
I will give feedback to sellers who leave it for me after I pay. If a seller will only provide feedback after I leave it for them first, they don’t get it.
Yeah, that's how I was, but isn't it a bit of an effort now? They purchase history page used to indicate if they left feedback, then they took it away.
The chances of getting positive feedback are greater when you are essentially giving money away; it never fails when I sell something cheap and realize it later the raving positive pops up. It can be bad luck to ask for buyers to leave feedback, let sleeping dogs lie I say, there are grouchy collectors out there that don't want to be poked.
We've done ebay since 1998. It used to be where I wouldn't leave FB until we received it, but since buyer feedback is totally meaningless now that sellers aren't allowed to leave honest feedback about the transaction, we've just automated it to give a positive upon completion of the deal... and hope they care enough to leave a positive. We've drastically scaled back on what we do on ebay now anyway so it's just not a big deal any longer.
RIP Mom- 1932-2012